GHOSTS OF SEGREGATION

A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION BY RICH FRISHMAN

All human landscape has cultural meaning. Because we rarely consider our construc-

tions as evidence of our priorities, beliefs and desires, the testimony our landscape

tells is perhaps more honest than anything we might intentionally present. Our built

environment is society’s autobiography writ large.

Ghosts of Segregation photographically explores the vestiges of America’s racism as

seen in the vernacular landscape: Schools for “colored” children, theatre entrances and

restrooms for “colored people,” lynching sites, juke joints, jails, hotels and bus stations.

What is past is prologue.

While the images presented are focused on the Deep South, prejudice has no geograph-

ic boundaries; I have all of America to explore. The ghosts of segregation haunt us.

Rich Frishman

LANGLEY, WASHINGTON, JULY 2018

Segregation Wall at Templin’s SaloonGONZALES , TEXAS

This segregation wall was constructed in 1906 and is decorated with an original pre-

1929 Dr. Pepper logo. During Jim Crow only Caucasian customers were allowed to sit

in the front of the saloon. All others had to sit behind the wall. When the saloon was

remodeled and re-opened in 2014 the wall, no longer used for its original purpose, was

retained as a historical reminder of those dark days.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2016

Po’ Monkey’s Juke JointMERIGOLD, MISSISSIPPI

Located in the Mississippi Delta outside the tiny town of Merigold, Po’ Monkey’s is

located in cotton fields in a sharecropper’s shack. It opened in 1961 and is the last rural

juke joint in the Mississippi Delta. During the era of Jim Crow, people “of color” and

Caucasians were largely prohibited from socializing, let alone dance or make music

together. The juke joint, an evolution of African American plantation musical customs,

provided a space for Black people to play music and socialize. Over time, these musical

oases became desegregated. “Po’ Monkey” was the nickname given to the owner of the

establishment, William Seaberry. He explained the name: “Po’ Monkey is all anybody

ever called me since I was little,” he said. “I don’t know why, except I was poor for sure.”

He died in 2016. The term “juke” is thought to derive from the Gullah dialect of south-

east Africa, where it means “boisterous.”

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Vestige of Colored Entrance OF Saenger TheatreHAT TIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI

Years after the end of Jim Crow segregation, many architectural vestiges remain. This

curious palimpsest of bricks covers the entrance for “Colored People” at the Saenger

Theatre, a once-grand movie house in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Often these entrances

were down an alley away from the glittering lights of the main entrance. Usually they

led directly to a set of stairs ascending to a segregated portion of the balcony.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

16th Street Baptist Church BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

On September 15, 1963, the congregation of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birming-

ham, Alabama greeted each other before the start of Sunday service. In the basement of

the church, five young girls, two of them sisters, gathered in the ladies room in their best

dresses, happily chatting about the first days of the new school year. It was Youth Day

and excitement filled the air, they were going to take part in the Sunday adult service.

Just before 11 o’clock, instead of rising to begin prayers the congregation was knocked

to the ground. As a bomb exploded under the steps of the church, they sought safety

under the pews and shielded each other from falling debris. In the basement, four little

girls, 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and 11-year-old

Cynthia Wesley, were killed. Addie’s sister Susan survived, but was permanently blinded.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

MONUMENT TO THE DEADMANZANAR, CALIFORNIA

Over 135 internees died during their incarceration at Manzanar, one of 10 concentration

camps built in the United States to house Japanese people, most of them US citizens.

Their ashes were buried in this small cemetery outside the barbed wire perimeter.

In 1943 some of the Japanese prisoners built this obelisk. The inscription translates as

“Monument to comfort the souls of the dead.” It is one of the few remaining structures

from the Manzanar concentration camp.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2008

29th STREET BEACHCHICAGO, ILLINOIS

On July 27, 1919 when large crowds of white and black patrons went to the Lake Michigan

beach in Chicago, Illinois to seek relief from the 96° heat, an angry dispute erupted over

the stoning of Eugene Williams, a young African American swimmer who inadvertently

crossed a segregated boundary into the “white” swimming area by 29th Street Beach.

White beachgoers hailed stones at the young man causing him to drown. When police

refused to arrest any whites, who were accused by black bystanders of having thrown

the stones and instead arrested a black beachgoer on a white’s complaint of some minor

offense, the blacks began to attack the white policeman. Reports of the incident spread

throughout Chicago igniting a clash of white and black rioters across the city’s South

Side. 38 people were killed and over 500 injured.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

REMAINS OF NEGRO LEAGUE STADIUMHAMTRAMCK , MICHIGAN

Hamtramck Stadium, home of the Negro League’s Detroit Stars from 1930 to 1937, is a

reminder of the Jim Crow era of segregation, a time when Blacks were not only forced

to use separate drinking fountains, bathrooms and bus seats from whites, but had

separate professional baseball leagues as well.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Shiloh Rosenwald SchoolWHITE OAKS , TEXAS

The newly freed African Americans of Shiloh established a school for their children

shortly after the Civil War. With financial assistance from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, a

new two-room school was erected in 1920. It was replaced by a large brick building in

the 1930’s. The High School was closed in 1949; the end of segregation closed the rest

of the Shiloh School in 1966. All that remains is the brick front wall.

The Rosenwald Fund was established in 1917 by Julius Rosenwald for “the well-being

of mankind.” Rosenwald was president and chairman of Sears, Roebuck and Company.

He became interested in social issues, especially education for African Americans in

the rural South, which was segregated and chronically underfunded. He provided fund-

ing to build hundreds of rural schools for black children, primarily in the South. These

schools became known as Rosenwald Schools. Few remain.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

University of Alabama Foster Auditorium TUSCALOOSA , ALABAMA

Foster Auditorium, on the campus of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

It was at the doors at the center that George Wallace, the governor of the state, stood

to ceremonially block the entrance of African American students who were about to

integrate the public university. This incident has become known as “The Stand in the

Schoolhouse Door.”

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Houston Negro Hospital School of NursingHOUSTON, TEXAS

Houston Negro Hospital School of Nursing, built in 1931, now stands abandoned along

with the hospital with which it once was associated. The hospital was created five years

earlier when the black Union-Jeramiah Hospital was no longer capable of accommo-

dating the rapidly growing black population of Houston. It was dedicated on June 19,

1926, a major local holiday in Texas known as “Juneteenth,” which commemorates the

day Emancipation occurred in the state.

The medical facility became the first non-profit hospital for black patients in Houston.

It also provided work for black physicians, who were not allowed to admit patients in

the “black wards” of other Houston hospitals.

The Houston Negro Hospital School of Nursing was established next to the hospital and

was the first educational institution created for the training of black nurses in Houston.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

ROOM #10, VICTORIA COLORED SCHOOLVICTORIA , TEXAS

The Victoria Colored School, built in 1901, continued to act as an exclusively black school

until 1966. At the outbreak of the Civil War, slaves equaled more than half of Victoria

County’s population, brought there by expansionist cotton farmers from other areas

of the South. The influx of Southerners surpassed the influx of the strict-abolitionist

German immigrants and Victoria County voted overwhelmingly for the secession of

Texas from the Union.

The war eventually destroyed the market for cotton. Former slaves either became share-

croppers or drifted into the city, establishing a community and social infrastructure.

After the war, area leaders wanted to establish schools for emancipated Blacks that

would channel them into vocational training for the kind of workforce area businesses

demanded.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Colored EntranceTYLERTOWN, MISSISSIPPI

The bricked palimpsest of a “colored entrance” to a movie theatre in Tylertown, Mis-

sissippi is an obcsure reminder of Jim Crow-era segregation. Often situated in an alley,

these entrances led to a segregated section of the balcony. In the case of this Tylertown,

Mississippi theatre, further down the alley is a steel door to the colored restroom.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Colored Entrance to Paramount Theatre CLARKSDALE, MISSISSIPPI

The Paramount Theatre, which opened as the Marion Theatre in 1918, was one of the

first purpose-built movie theatres in Mississippi. While white patrons entered under

neon lights on Yazoo Street, “colored” people had to purchase their tickets around back

and trudge up these stairs to the segregated sections of the upper and lower balcony.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

COLORED ENTRANCEPHILADELPHIA , MISSISSIPPI

The Ellis Theatre in Philadelphia, Mississippi had a “colored entrance” tucked to the left

of the ticket booth. It led directly up stairway to the segregated section of the balcony.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Ellis TheatreCLEVELAND, MISSISSIPPI

On the left is the Ellis Theatre’s entrance for “colored people.” On the right is the

colored restroom entrance. Buddy Jennings writes: “The one thing that sticks out most

in my mind about the Ellis is the Saturday June Smith (a black friend of mine who

also lived on Kennedy’s farm) and I walked all the way there to see a Tarzan movie and

they would not let us sit together. June had to sit up in the balcony and they would not

let me sit up there with him. The movie cost me a quarter and cost June fifteen cents.

We were only nine or ten years old at the time and had our parents’ permission to walk

all the way to Cleveland and back, even though it would be close to midnight before we

were back home.”

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Colored Entrance to Texan Theatre KILGORE, TEXAS

The enigmatic door atop the stairway on the south side of the Texan Theatre, long locked

and largely overlooked, is the “colored entrance,” a vestige of Jim Crow-era segregation.

In Kilgore, Texas, the term “colored” extended to anyone not Caucasian, including

Hispanics and the occasional Asian.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

COLORED ENTRANCE TO TEMPLE THEATREMERIDIAN, MISSISSIPPI

The magnificent Temple Theatre in Meridian, Mississippi required “colored” guests to

enter by a side entrance down an alley, away from the “whites only” main entrance. The

brickwork and metal reinforcements above the doorway indicate an overhanging mar-

quee once decorated this side entrance. The theatre was built in 1921.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Railroad HotelCLARKSDALE, MISSISSIPPI

In the 1920s, The Travelers was a bare-bones 13-room, second-story hotel that accom-

modated colored railroad workers. It is located at 212 Third Street, in an area of Clarks-

dale once referred to as “The New World,” the belly of the blues and red light district.

It was commonly referred to as a “railroad hotel” because its guests were mostly rail

workers. As of March 2018 it was undergoing restoration to become a boutique hotel.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

SEGREGATION WALLDETROIT, MICHIGAN

Constructed as a physical barrier between a Black neighborhood and a housing

development for whites, 8-Mile Wall was built in 1941. Extending a half-mile, it was the

embodiment of redlining, the restrictive real estate practice that marked neighborhoods

as undesireable based upon racial composition. The Federal Housing Authority would

not underwrite home loans in such red-lined areas.

As a consequence of redlining, neighborhoods that local banks deemed unfit for invest-

ment were left underdeveloped or in disrepair. Attempts to improve these neighbor-

hoods with even relatively small-scale business ventures were commonly obstructed by

financial institutions that continued to label the underwriting as too risky or simply

rejected them outright. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 theoretically ended such discrimi-

natory lending, but its effects continue today.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Medgar Evers’ HouseJACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

The first Mississippi state field secretary for the National Association for the Advance-

ment of Colored People (NAACP), Medgar Evers was shot in the back in the carport of

his humble home in Jackson, Mississippi, shortly after midnight on June 12, 1963. He

died less than a hour later at a nearby hospital.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Neshoba County Jail (former)PHILADELPHIA , MISSISSIPPI

During the Freedom Summer of 1964 three civil rights activists were jailed briefly

in this small Neshoba County jail on trumped up charges. When Mickey Schwerner,

Andrew Goodman and James Chaney were released that night, they were followed by

Ku Klux Klan members tipped off by the sheriff ’s office. They were forced off the road en

route to their office in Meridian, taken to a remote backroads location and bludgeoned.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Murder Site of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner

NEAR PHILADELPHIA , MISSISSIPPI

During the Freedom Summer of 1964 three civil rights activists were jailed briefly in the

small Neshoba County jail on trumped up charges. When Mickey Schwerner, Andrew

Goodman and James Chaney were released that night, they were followed by Ku Klux

Klan members tipped off by the sheriff ’s office. They were forced off the road en route

to their office in Meridian, taken to this remote backroads location and bludgeoned to

death. Their bodies were later found in an earthen dam.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Hanging TreeGOLIAD, TEXAS

The Goliad Hanging Tree is a symbol of justice, Texas-style. For 24 years the court

trials of Goliad County were held under this big oak tree. Death sentences were carried

out promptly, usually within a few minutes, courtesy of the tree’s many handy noose-

worthy branches. The tree also served as a gallows for approximately 75 lynchings, many

during the 1857 “Cart War” between Texans and Mexicans.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Bryant’s General StoreMONEY, MISSISSIPPI

In August 1955, 14-year old Emmett Till, visiting from Chicago, walked into Bryant’s

General Store in Money, Mississippi with his cousins, innocently whistling to control

his stutter. The young white woman tending the store, Carolyn Bryant, told her husband

that Emmett Till had whistled at her and made flirtatious advances. Several nights after

the store incident, Bryant’s husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam went to Till’s

great-uncle’s house and abducted the boy. They beat and mutilated him before shoot-

ing him in the head and throwing his body into Black Bayou. In 2007 Carolyn Bryant

admitted her accusations had been false.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Black Bayou BridgeGLENDORA , MISSISSIPPI

In 1955, when Emmett Till was fourteen, his mother put him on a train from Chica-

go to spend the summer visiting his cousins in Money, Mississippi. She never saw him

alive again. Her son was abducted and brutally murdered on August 28, 1955, after

being falsely accused of interacting inappropriately with a white woman. His body was

dumped into the muddy waters below Black Bayou bridge.

The following month, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam faced trial for Till’s

kidnapping and murder but were acquitted by the all-white jury after a five-day trial and

a 67-minute deliberation. One juror said, “If we hadn’t stopped to drink pop, it wouldn’t

have taken that long.” Only months later, in an interview with Look magazine in 1956,

protected against double jeopardy, Bryant and Milam admitted to killing Emmett Till.

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

Border WallBROWNSVILLE , TEXAS

The United States government has recently begun fortifying the border between the

U.S. and Mexico. Nearby, in a former Walmart store, nearly 1500 immigrant children

separated from their parents are incarcerated (as of July 2018.)

PHOTOGRAPHED: 2018

If you are interested in this project, please contact me at:

rich@frishphoto.com

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS ARE COPYRIGHT © RICH FRISHMAN. NO PART OF THIS PRESENTATION MAY BE USED WITHOUT PERMISSION